


The Family Business

by fenellaevangela



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:30:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/pseuds/fenellaevangela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because there aren't any murders to solve doesn't mean Liv stops eating brains. Usually she tries to ignore visions that don't have anything to do with a case, but then she has one that gives her unexpected insight into the life of one of the people she thought she knew best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Family Business

**Author's Note:**

  * For [treewishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/treewishes/gifts).



> This fic is set vaguely in season two, some time after Peyton returns. I love Peyton and I still think there's something about her time away that the show hasn't told us yet . . . maybe not _this_ , but something!

The thing was, Liv only had the vision by chance.

The morgue was quiet that week. Not _empty_ , which was (from a zombie’s perspective) a good thing, but the bodies that had been passing through Ravi and Liv’s domain were all the subjects of open-and-shut cases. No mysteries meant no breaks from routine, no detectives dropping in - and no need for visions. 

Liv found that it was harder for her to choose a brain to eat when there was no pressing need beyond her own hunger. Before anyone else knew she was a zombie she had always chosen those brains that she thought wouldn’t be missed – although she had turned out to be wrong about that – and since then almost every brain she’d eaten had been consumed in the line of duty. But now, with no case to be worked and Liv keenly aware that Ravi would know exactly what was happening, Liv found herself feeling . . . self-conscious. 

Of course, Ravi figured that out as well.

“Hey, Liv?” he called, poking his head from the morgue’s kitchenette. “Can you come here a minute?”

“Sure, just a sec,” Liv said. She finished the last few notations on the file of their latest case – killer caught at the scene, but she still had to dot her Is and cross her Ts – and headed over. She could smell the pungent scent of cooked brains the moment she crossed the threshold - still so, _so_ gross, and yet the most delicious thing she had ever smelled.

“Is that - did you . . .?” 

“Cook a dead person’s brain for you?” Ravi finished. “Yes I did, and while it sounds rather awful out loud, it’s arguably _not_ the weirdest thing I’ve done as part of our friendship.” He pulled out the chair in front of the single place setting, where a sandwich was steaming tantalizingly on a plate. “Dig in!”

Liv quirked an eyebrow at him. 

“You don’t usually get so hands-on with your assisted cannibalism,” she said, ignoring Ravi’s scrunched face at ‘cannibalism’. “You weren’t worried I was going to go all mindless zombie on you, were you?” 

“Perish the thought!” Ravi exclaimed. “Although I _think_ I caught you lingering over Ms. Gupta’s skull wound this morning, just a bit, you know? And it _has_ been a couple days since your last mood swing, so I thought I’d . . . save you the trouble. Yeah?”

“Well, you didn’t need to worry, but thank you,” Liv said. She slipped into the chair and allowed Ravi to push it in for her before picking up half of the sandwich from her plate and taking a big, satisfying bite.

Ravi sat down across from her. 

“It’s grilled cheese à la Mr. Mueller from yesterday. I didn’t know how much hot sauce to add, though.”

“It’s _perfect_ ,” Liv assured him, quickly taking another bite.

She had no idea what was in store for her.

* * *

A few hours and one vision later, Liv felt like her entire world had been turned upside down.

She didn’t know what to do. The brain borrowing her head was telling her to calm down and assess the situation like a professional, but the part that was still Liv was too upset to calm down. She needed someone else who could understand how bad this was. Unfortunately, actually putting the situation into words was proving to be a hard pill to swallow. 

“Wait, Liv, I still don’t understand what’s happening.” Major turned to Ravi, who was sitting on the couch next to him. “Do _you_ know what’s happening?”

Ravi, his head cradled in his hands, sighed. “It’s the brain she’s on. It’s all my fault, I’ve given her an off brain.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the brain,” Liv snapped. She was dangerously close to wearing a groove in the floor of Major and Ravi’s living room, but she couldn’t stand still. “It isn’t the brain; it’s what Mr. Mueller does. Did. And who he did it with.”

Major swatted Ravi’s shoulder. “Didn’t you check this guy out before giving his brain to Liv?”

“Mr. Mueller died from a heart attack!” Ravi exclaimed, throwing up his arms. “He didn’t have a criminal record! Was I supposed to do a background check before fixing Liv a light lunch?”

Liv sighed. “Major, stop blaming Ravi. This is – good, I guess? I just don’t know what to _do_.”

“But what _is_ it?” Major asked.

“It’s – it’s Peyton,” Liv explained. Spit out. Made _real_. “Mr. Mueller knew Peyton; I saw her in a vision.”

Ravi sat up straighter at that, and Major’s brow furrowed.

“But Mr. Mueller wasn’t even from Seattle, he was just here on holiday,” Ravi said.

“I know!” said Liv. “I know, but I think he was here to meet her.”

“Well, so what? What did you actually see that has you so . . .?” Major trailed off, gesturing vaguely at Liv’s pacing.

Liv took a deep, shuddering breath. “I didn’t see much. They were standing outside a building, but it was dark and I couldn’t tell where it was, exactly.”

“But it was definitely Peyton?” asked Ravi.

“I’d stake my life on it,” Liv confirmed. “Mueller seemed to be in charge – he asked Peyton ‘Are you ready?’ and when Peyton nodded, they opened the door and . . .”

“Liv?” Ravi asked.

She bit the bullet. “And there was a gunshot. They killed the person who was inside. Guys, it was one of Blaine’s goons – Peyton was there to kill a zombie.”

* * *

At first, Ravi and Major were against Liv confronting Peyton on her own.

Mr. Mueller’s brain agreed with them, assessing Peyton as a threat and the two men as valuable assets for neutralizing her. Liv still wasn’t sure exactly what kind of person Mr. Mueller was, but she had eaten military brains before and there was something familiar yet slightly off about the ideas intruding on her thoughts. It made her anxious. But even under the brain’s influence Liv couldn’t bear the thought of _neutralizing_ her best friend, and she convinced the others to give her a chance to try talking to Peyton alone.

She waited in the kitchen until Peyton returned home from the district attorney’s office, looking tired but happy, and _normal_ in a way that was unnerving after what Liv had seen in her vision. If she hadn’t seen it through Mr. Mueller’s eyes, Liv would have never been able to imagine Peyton with that cold look on her face and a gun in her hand.

“Hey, Liv!” she said, setting her briefcase on one of the kitchen chairs and heading for the refrigerator. “Date night with Major?”

“Uh, no, actually,” Liv said. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about something? Ravi and Major are upstairs.”

Peyton turned from the refrigerator with a wine cooler in hand and a quirked eyebrow. “ _O_ kay, what’s up?”

Liv shifted nervously. There was no good way of saying ‘I know you’re killing zombies and I’m worried you didn’t tell me about it because I – impossibly – am next’. “I guess I’ll start from the beginning. A body came into the morgue yesterday. Gregory Mueller.”

And – there it was. Recognition. Peyton froze for half a beat before putting the wine cooler down on the kitchen counter and taking a step towards Liv.

“Look,” she said. “I don’t know what you saw -”

“I think you have an idea.”

Peyton nodded. “I do. But whatever you saw, it doesn’t have anything to do with you, Liv, okay?”

“Did you . . .” Liv swallowed, and she shifted away from Peyton. “Did you disappear for months because you were out there somewhere learning how to kill zombies? Is that something you do now?”

Peyton slumped slightly. “Not . . . exactly. Look, there’s something you don’t know about me -” Liv snorted, but Peyton didn’t miss a beat. “- and about my family. You know about zombies, obviously, but did you know there are other creatures out there? Have you come across anything?”

Liv crossed her arms. “Like what? Goblins? Werewolves?”

“Werewolves,” said Peyton, nodding. “Vampires, poltergeists, a few things that most people don’t know the name of. They really exist, Liv, and sometimes they hurt people.”

Liv could feel a prickle of familiarity in the back of her mind. “What exactly are you saying?”

“Someone has to stop them, Liv. And, well . . .” Peyton sighed. “That’s what my family does. We’re hunters.”

“Hunters of _monsters_ ,” said Liv, incredulous. “Are you joking? I’ve met your parents, Peyton!”

“Well, we don’t exactly go around telling people when we have them over for dinner,” Peyton said. 

Liv wasn’t sure what to think. The story could fit what she knew about Mr. Mueller – which wasn’t much, with only one full vision and an uneasy feeling to go on so far – but the idea that she’d missed something so crucial about her best friend was jarring. It boggled her mind that they even called themselves best friends when there was so much they hadn’t told each other.

“So when you found out about me, was that all just an act?” Liv asked. She had been so terrified when Peyton saw her fight Sebastian, and if Peyton had known but let her feel that way anyway. . .

The other woman shook her head. “No, Liv, I wouldn’t. I’d never heard of someone like you before – I didn’t know what to do.”

Liv scoffed. “Oh, you’ve heard of vampires and poltergeists, but not zombies?”

“That’s the amazing thing!” Peyton said, her face actually lighting up in excitement. She picked her wine cooler back up and popped the lid. “Zombies were never real, Liv, they don’t even exist anywhere else. When that guy ambushed me I had no idea what to do, what his weak spots were. When I saw you . . .” She took a swig of her drink. “I needed to figure out what I was up against.”

Liv took that in. “So you _were_ off somewhere learning how to kill zombies.”

Peyton winced. “Okay, yeah. But only the ones who hurt people, Liv. You can’t tell me some of them aren’t dangerous.”

That was true, but it didn’t make the truth any easier to swallow. It didn’t make the lies any easier to bear. If Liv was going to trust Peyton after this, she would need to know more. A _lot_ more.

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” she said. “I’m going to call Ravi and Major downstairs, we’re going to sit down, and then you’re going to start from the beginning.”

Relief washed over Peyton's face. "Okay, Liv. Yeah. Let's do that."

It was going to be a long night.


End file.
